


Smoke and Fire

by lookingforthestars



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Post Finale, Yeah this is just smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:16:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforthestars/pseuds/lookingforthestars
Summary: "No one else was ever going to make her feel like this, wanted and safe and scared and heartbroken and loved. It’s overwhelming, but now that she’s felt it, there’s no going back to anything less." The morning after they defeat Morgan.
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 68





	Smoke and Fire

What even happened last night?

Gert cracks one eye open, wincing at the sudden influx of light. Her head aches and if this is a hangover, she must have gone hard last night, because she doesn’t remember drinking at all.

She shifts a little – fuck, _everything_ aches – and that’s when she finally realizes she’s not alone. Gert doesn’t have to see his face to know whose strong arms are wrapped around her, whose face is buried in her neck as he breathes steadily. Chase is in her bed, like this is normal, like they didn’t…

The memories hit her like a freight train. The kiss, the fight, the blood, the confusion. The relief. Gert dragging him back to her room – their room, maybe, if he still wanted that – and pulling him close without many words. She’d been tired, too tired to dissect her alleged death or his real one or the existence and logistics of time travel. She didn’t need answers. She needed sleep and she needed Chase to hold her and he’d been more than willing to oblige her on both of those points.

Gert shuts her eyes again, focusing on Chase’s warm breath on her skin. She almost hates how much she missed this, his weight and his warmth and his scent. She hates how much she wants him, sometimes. This thing between them can be a lot. But. It’s only a problem if he doesn’t feel the same way and, judging by how tightly he’s holding her right now, Gert thinks she might finally believe otherwise.

“You awake?” Chase mumbles against her neck. He sounds groggy and Gert feels a little bad for moving around so much and waking him up. But also, she really wants him to wake up.

“Yeah,” she says softly, because the Hostel is uncharacteristically quiet, and anything louder would feel like shouting. He disentangles himself, rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Hi.”

Chase smiles, warm and golden in the early morning sunlight. He’s so beautiful. “Hi.”

Gert decides, right then and there, that this is the only way she wants to wake up from now on. Every morning, with Chase looking at her like this. She knows that decision isn’t hers to make alone, but it feels significant, being so certain of what she wants after months of uncertainty.

He grimaces a little, and Gert’s fingers go to his cheek, ghosting over the slight discoloration. “You’re going to have a black eye.”

“Yeah, I can feel it. Well, it won’t be the first time. And least this one was on me.” Gert gives him a disapproving look. It’s not a joke. Nothing that happened last night is a joke. Nothing that has happened to Chase at the hands of his father is a joke. “How do you feel?” he asks, and she can tell he’s changing the subject but she doesn’t push it.

“A little sore. My back and my shoulder, mostly. Nothing serious.” She doesn’t give a shit about the pain, honestly. It’s a small price to pay for the world to be intact and her family to be safe. There’s another timeline where everything is wrong, but they’re not in that one. They’re here, and everything is okay, and Gert is so grateful for that she might actually cry. “Hey, we, um…we didn’t really get to talk yesterday.”

Chase looks hesitant, nervous, as he nods. She’s pushed him away so many times – most of her life, really – so she can’t blame him for being unsure now, even though she’s the one going out on a limb here. “Old Lace took your side, you know. When you told me you loved me. She gave me so much shit for not saying it back.”

His eyes widen a little, and he swallows. “Gert, you don’t have to-.”

“Please, just let me say this.” He falls silent, and Gert sucks in a breath. Her heart is racing. “She was right, I was a coward. I’ve been in love with you as long as I can remember, which sounds so sappy and stupid, Jesus. But we got a second chance and I’m tired of being afraid, even if this is still kind of terrifying, so if you could say it back before I have a meltdown, that would be great.”

Chase is fucking glowing. His smile is almost blindingly bright and it makes her ache in the best possible way. “Gert.” He takes her hand in his, presses a kiss to her palm. “I love you, okay? I feel like an idiot for not figuring it out earlier. I should have been telling you since we were, like, thirteen.”

“That probably would have saved me a lot of teenage angst,” she whispers to make him laugh, and her chest feels warm when he does. “It’s okay. We still have plenty of time.”

She doesn’t understand _how_ , exactly, but she doesn’t have to understand it to know that it didn’t come easy, and she shouldn’t take it for granted.

“Yeah?” How can he still sound so unsure when she just spilled her guts out all over the floor? When he’s _Chase Stein_ , the boy who has always had her heart, even when she tried desperately to convince him – and herself – otherwise?

Chase is better at Big Speeches than she is, and Gert is tired of talking anyway, so she kisses him instead, one hand balling up in his shirt as the other slides into his hair. Fuck, she missed his hair. And his lips. All of him. All of this.

He freezes for a second, surprised, but Gert doesn’t have time to worry before he’s reciprocating, kissing her so intensely she forgets what they were just talking about. She hooks her leg over his hip, wanting to get _closer_ , and a shiver bolts down her spine when he sighs her name against her lips.

She’s always wanted him but never as much as right now, and she doesn’t know if it’s because she watched him die, because they haven’t been together like this in months, because she loves him and he loves her and it’s all out on the table now. Maybe all three. She just hopes Chase wants this too, because she might _actually_ die if they have to stop.

“Is this okay?” Chase asks quietly, his fingers slipping just beneath the hem of her shirt. He’s trying to go slow, bless him, but Gert is not that patient. His breath catches when she pulls back a little and tugs the shirt over her head, burning underneath his gaze as it scans from her face to her breasts and back up. “Gert.” His voice is shaky, and she feels a spark of pride that she can unravel him so easily. “We don’t have to. I can wait.”

He would, and she loves that about him – but they’ve already wasted so much time. “I can’t,” she says, relieved when Chase nods before crashing his lips back to hers.

Kissing Chase feels so fucking good. It was such a dumbass move to suggest that they date other people. No one else was ever going to make her feel like this, wanted and safe and scared and heartbroken and loved. It’s overwhelming, but now that she’s felt it, there’s no going back to anything less.

She clutches the bottom of Chase’s undershirt, moving away the absolute minimum distance required to get it off of him and moaning quietly into the kiss at the feel of his skin on hers. He’s so warm and his heart is pounding against her chest and Gert feels so alive. She didn’t realize how much she had been burying her emotions, forcing herself not to feel _anything_ , until she stopped trying.

His fingers trail along her back, which feels wonderful until he brushes a sensitive spot near her shoulder blade and Gert hisses. Chase pulls away at record speed, looking horrified with himself. “Did I hurt you? Gert, we should-.”

“It’s okay, I’m okay.” She cups his jaw, careful to avoid the developing bruise on his face, and presses their foreheads together. “I don’t want to stop. Just, um, be careful with my shoulder.”

Chase shuts his eyes, and they breathe together. When it seems like he’s calmed down, Gert kisses him again, softer this time. He is always letting her lead, set the pace, tell him what she needs. _We can do this however you want._

She undoes the drawstring of his sweatpants (the ones she’d sheepishly pulled from the back of the closet, thankful when Chase refrained from asking why she never returned them), running her hand over him through the fabric and smirking as he groans into her mouth. It’s the hottest fucking thing she’s ever heard, that sound.

Gert knows he’s getting too worked up because he flips the tables, pushing her gently onto her back and hooking his fingers underneath the waistband of her shorts. “This okay?”

She nods, already kind of panting in anticipation as he slides her shorts and underwear down in one motion and tosses them onto the floor. Gert lets her legs fall open, her hand tangling into Chase’s hair again as he kisses his way from her collarbone to her stomach to her thighs, sucking little hickies into her skin. She doesn’t mind being marked, as long as she can cover it up later.

There’s something painfully intimate about this – Gert remembers how self-conscious she was the first time Chase went down on her – and it’s still a little scary, the complete and total vulnerability.

But she trusts Chase. He’s worked so hard to make things right, and…

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” she whimpers as he puts his mouth on her, any and all thoughts driven from her head. Chase has an excellent memory, and it only took about two tries for him to learn all the spots that make her shudder. Time hasn’t diminished his abilities, clearly, and Gert clings to the pillow, arching her back as he pushes his tongue into her. “God, Chase.”

The smug bastard responds by humming against her as he diverts his attention to her clit, and she tries not to be embarrassed at how wet she is when he slowly slides two fingers inside her and curls them.

It’s been a while since Gert’s last orgasm – it was hard to conjure up any kind of fantasy that didn’t get immediately ruined by thoughts of Chase – so she’s not all that shocked when she comes with a few thrusts of his fingers and his tongue heavy on her clit. He rubs his thumb against her hip as she struggles to catch her breath, partially from Chase’s undeniable talent and partially from the effort of trying not to wake up the rest of the Hostel.

He presses a kiss to her thigh before climbing back up the mattress, stretching out next to her. Chase brushes her hair behind her ear, looking at her so adoringly that Gert kind of feels like she’s drowning. “Good?”

“It was okay,” she shrugs, bursting into giggles at the look on his face. He grins, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. She’s so happy. It’s obnoxious.

“Do you still want to…?”

“Get breakfast? Definitely,” she says with mock seriousness, just to mess with him. Chase tilts his head, giving her a _look_ , but there’s no real annoyance behind it.

Gert pulls him in for a kiss and they make out lazily for a while until she can feel her legs again. There’s no way they’re leaving this bed until he makes love to her, and he knows it. Because that’s what this is, and she gets it, now. He loves her, and it’s in every touch, every point of contact, she feels it.

Chase hovers over her, keeping his weight on his arms as Gert fishes the condom out of her drawer and tears the wrapper. She strokes him a few times before rolling it on, wrapping her legs around him as he eases into her.

“I love you,” she murmurs, like it’s a thing she says all the time, like it’s not a huge fucking deal. Chase looks just as happy as when she confessed it twenty minutes ago, and she wonders how long he’s going to keep lighting up whenever she says it.

“Me too.” He kisses her hard, and it doesn’t bother her that he didn’t say the exact words, because she really does know. Gert kisses him back, her hand cupping his neck as he pushes deep inside of her. It’s incredible, but that’s not a surprise, although she does wonder if they’re really that good at sex or if she’s so stupidly in love with him that it doesn’t matter.

It’s slow and sweet until it isn’t, and Chase buries his face in Gert’s neck as he moves faster. Her nails dig into his back a little when she comes – only fair, considering how much evidence he left on her body – and the way he gasps her name when he finishes makes the high even better.

Gert mourns the loss when Chase rolls off of her, but he’s only gone as long as it takes to throw out the condom and then he’s next to her again, on his side with his arm draped across her stomach. She runs her hand up his arm to his bicep, absentmindedly drawing designs on his skin. “Well, fuck.”

He laughs, loud and happy, and brushes his lips against her collarbone. “How do you feel? I didn’t hurt your shoulder, did I?”

It’s such a _Chase_ question. He’s screwed up a fuckton of times – and so has she – but at the end of the day, their most important thing is always each other, and if that’s not enough, she doesn’t know what is. “No, you didn’t. I’m good.”

Chase smiles, and for the first time in a really, _really_ long time, it feels true.


End file.
